A Dominican sister from Iraq testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday and made an impassioned plea to the world to help return Christians to the land they have occupied since the dawn of Christianity, many of whom remain displaced and living out of church halls, schools and tents after having all of their worldly possessions stolen by ISIS jihadists.
The 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative is reporting on the testimony of Sister Diana Momeka, OP Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena, Mosul, Iraq, whose application for a visa was initially refused by the U.S. State Department, testified about ISIS’ war on religious minorities and the destruction of Christians along with their sacred buildings, artifacts and collections.
Sister lived through a bombing of her convent in Mosul in November 2009 and when the prioress asked the local authorities for protection, her request went unanswered. As a result, the nuns were forced to flee to Qaraqosh.
In June of 2014, ISIS invaded the Nineveh Plain where Qaraqosh is located and began to overrun each town, giving Christians three choices: 1) convert to Islam; 2) pay the stifling Al-Jizya tax or; 3) leave their homes with nothing more than the clothes on their back.
“As this horror spread throughout the Nineveh Plain, by August 6, 2014, Nineveh was emptied of Christians, and sadly, for the first time since the seventh century AD, no church bells rang for Mass in the Plain of Nineveh,” she told the Committee.
The ancient city of Mosul
There are now more than 120,000 displaced people living in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Forced to leave behind everything they worked for over the centuries, this forcible uprooting “displaced them body and soul, stripping away their humanity and dignity,” she said.
To those who question why Christians don’t just leave Iraq and move to a friendlier country, Sister Diana asks, “Why should we leave our country – what have we done?”
She goes on to remind that “the Christians of Iraq are the first people of the land. You read about us in the Old Testament of the Bible. Christianity came to Iraq from the very earliest days through the preaching and witness of St Thomas and others of the Apostles and Church Elders.
“While our ancestors experienced all kinds of persecution, they stayed in their land, building a culture that has served humanity for the ages. We, as Christians, do not want, or deserve, to leave or be forced out of our country any more than you would want to leave or be forced out of yours.
“But the current persecution that our community is facing is the most brutal in our history. Not only have we been robbed of our homes, property and land, but our heritage is being destroyed as well. ISIS has been and continues to demolish and bomb our churches, cultural artifacts and sacred places like Mar Behnam and Sara, a fourth century monastery and St. Georges Monastery in Mosul.
“Uprooted and forcefully displaced, we have realized that ISIS’ plan is to evacuate the land of Christians and wipe the earth clean of any evidence that we ever existed. This is cultural and human genocide. The only Christians that remain in the Plain of Nineveh are those who are held as hostages.”
The loss of the Christian community from the Plain of Nineveh will place the entire region on the edge of disaster, she said, because Christians have been the bridge that connects the Eastern and Western cultures for centuries. “Destroying this bridge will leave an isolated, enculturated conflict zone emptied of cultural and religious diversity. Through our presence as Christians, we’re called to be a force for good, for peace, for connection between cultures.”
Three things are desperately needed to repair and rebuild the Christian community in Iraq: 1) liberating Christian homes and allowing them to return to their villages; 2) rebuilding destroyed infrastructure such as roads, water and electrical supplies, buildings, churches and monasteries, and; 3) encouraging enterprises through schools, academic and other instructional projects to restore inter-religious dialogue in Iraq.
Sister Diana implored all Americans to raise their voices on behalf of Iraqi Christians, “so that diplomacy and not genocide, social well-being and not weapons, and the desire for justice and not selfish interests” will determine the future for Iraq and all of her people.
“I am but one, small person – a victim myself of ISIS and all of its brutality,” Sister Diana concluded. “Coming here has been difficult for me – as a religious sister I am not comfortable with the media and so much attention. But I am here, and I am here to ask you, to implore you for the sake of our common humanity, to help us. Stand with us as we, as Christians, have stood with all the people of the world and help us. We want nothing more than to go back to our lives; we want nothing more than to go home.”
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